I BREATHE AND I DREAM: Latifa Alajlan
Born and raised in Kuwait and currently based in New York, Latifa Alajlan develops a painterly practice rooted in abstraction as a physical and spatial process. Her paintings approach the surface as a place of construction rather than representation, where form emerges through layers, gestures, and time. Architecture is a central starting point in her work, providing a sense of structure before any intuitive movement takes place. Geometric vocabularies drawn from Middle Eastern architectural forms offer rhythm, repetition, and balance, serving as a framework rather than a symbolic reference.
The works presented in I Breathe and I Dream combine pigment and direct gesture. For Alajlan, painting is not limited to visual perception; it is tactile and bodily, evoking touch, weight, and resistance. Her use of materials such as graphite, acrylic, and oil reflects an attention to their physical properties and the way they interact on the surface. These works resist quick viewing and invite close, sustained engagement.
This body of work unfolds through a repeated exploration of colour, depth, and spatial tension. Lattice-like geometric structures anchor the compositions, creating stable frameworks within which colour moves more freely. Chromatic gestures carry the memory of movement and pressure, sometimes appearing suspended or drifting across the surface. The balance between structure and looseness remains deliberately unstable, allowing the paintings to shift as the viewer moves around them.
For this series, Alajlan made a significant shift in her working method by painting directly on the ground, often on unstretched canvases. This change altered her physical relationship to the work. Gravity, movement, and time became active elements in the process. The rhythm of making slow, repetitive, layered echoes the act of breathing itself. Allowing room for experimentation and imperfection, the work has become quieter, more open, and more direct.
In I Breathe and I Dream, painting unfolds slowly, guided by rhythm, touch, and material accumulation. The exhibition invites viewers into a space of attention and stillness, where structure and intuition coexist and where meaning emerges through sustained engagement.
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